Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests Around the Country

I have been tracking, confirming and verifying reports of journalist arrests at Occupy protests all over the country since September, 2011. Help me by sending tips and tweets to @jcstearns and tagging reports of press suppression and arrests with #journarrest.

Between September 2011 and September 2012 more than 90 journalists have been arrested in 12 cities around the United States while covering Occupy protests and civil unrest. (Check back for updates) This number includes an array of people who were documenting and reporting on Occupy events including professional press, freelancers, photographers, independent filmmakers, and citizen journalists.

SEPTEMBER 2011 - one arrest

On September 24, 2011, public television reporter John Farley was arrested.

By Xeni Jardin at 12:48 pm Wednesday, Sep 28 While working on a story about citizen journalism at the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York for PBS affiliate WNET Thirteen, John Farley was arrested, along with the demonstrators whose stories he was covering.

On Sept. 24, while working on a story about citizen journalism for my employer, I found myself arrested, along with many other people. My arrest gave me a unique vantage point on the risks and rewards of citizen journalists, those non-professionals who capture stories (usually without pay) using videos and images via portable technology like a cell phone camera.

The Occupy Wall Street protests continue to gain media attention as thousands marched towards the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, leading to hundreds of arrests by the NYPD, and the closure of the bridge. A freelance reporter for the New York Times, Natasha Lennard, was among those arrested. "'They can't arrest us all, right?'

At the time of this posting, hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters, members of the press and bystanders are being penned by the police on the Brooklyn Bridge, waiting to get arrested one by one. (The livestream is in the previous post.)

Stephanie Keith, freelance photographer, was arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011. She was able to sell many of her photos of the arrests on the bridge to the Associated Press.

Stephanie Keith, 40, a freelance photographer arrested on Saturday, backed up claims by those online, saying she also was confused by the police tactics. Keith told the Daily Dot in a phone interview that she was in the front of the crowd, and was among the first to be arrested.
At the beginning of the confrontation, police read from a prepared statement, telling protesters they would be arrested if they blocked the road. But she said, “no one except the few people in the front heard the police, because the chanting was so loud,” Keith said. “The people in the back had no idea the police had said anything.”